Matthew 24:28

William Branham’s followers insist that he was Elijah of Malachi 4, and therefore had a divine right and supernatural ability to interpret the scripture. His interpretation of scripture is accepted over any other, no matter the source, even scripture itself. This is especially troubling because William Branham often paid little attention to context or even the simplest laws of grammar when interpreting a passage of scripture. One example is Matthew 24:28, a verse frequently repeated in message pulpits today:

For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. (KJV)

What William Branham taught

What is that carcass? The carcass is what the eagles feed on. Now, an eagle is considered in the Bible, a prophet. A prophet is the eagle. God--God calls himself a eagle, and we're eaglets then, the--the believers. You see? And what is the carcass that they feed on? Is the Word. Wherever the Word is, the true nature of the bird will show itself. See? A eagle, which wants fresh meat, he must have his fresh meat.

The way William Branham unpacks this verse, we are to understand Jesus to mean: Wherever the living Word of the hour is being preached, the elect bride will be congregated around it.

What the Bible is actually saying

In understanding the Bible, you MUST NOT take things out of context.

Perhaps the leading interpretive principle for understanding any document can be summarized in three words: “Context. Context. Context.”

With respect to Matthew 24:28, neither the context of the passage, nor the original language support William Branham's interpretation. Throughout the 24th chapter of Matthew, Jesus is foretelling the great tribulations to come, and is responding to his disciples question of how they will know when these things will take place (v.3).

Jesus warns them about being led astray, about false prophets arising with secret revelation (v.26), and finally says that the coming of the son of man will be no secret, rather, it will be as obvious as lightning flashing across the sky. Many scholars believe that verse 28 is simply Jesus summing up his answer by giving an allegorical reference, as he so often did in his sermons and parables: “there, I’ve told you the signs to look for, if you want to find a body, look for the vultures.”

Vultures? But I thought the bible said ‘eagles’? No. In fact, nearly every English translation in print translates the Greek word aetos as “vultures”.

Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather.

Wherever there is a carcass, there the vultures will gather.

Wherever there is a dead body, the vultures will gather.

The Arrival of the Son of Man isn’t something you go to see. He comes like swift lightning to you! Whenever you see crowds gathering, think of carrion vultures circling, moving in, hovering over a rotting carcass. You can be quite sure that it’s not the living Son of Man pulling in those crowds.

Eagle or Vulture?

ἀετός (aetos) — ‘eagle, vulture.’ ἐδόθησαν τῇ γυναικὶ αἱ δύο πτέρυγες τοῦ ἀετοῦ τοῦ μεγάλου ‘they gave the woman two wings of a large eagle’ Re 12:14; ὅπου ἐὰν ᾖ τὸ πτῶμα, ἐκεῖ συναχθήσονται οἱ ἀετοί ‘wherever there is a dead body, there the vultures will gather’ Mt 24:28.

In Re 12:14 the emphasis is upon strength and speed, and therefore a term meaning ‘eagle’ is probably more satisfactory, but in Mt 24:28 (and the parallel passages in Lk 17:37) the reference is to the eating of dead flesh, and therefore a word meaning ‘vultures’ is more appropriate.

The basic distinction between eagles and vultures is that the former either capture their prey or feed upon dead carcasses, while vultures only feed upon dead carcasses. Only in the Western Hemisphere are there two distinct families of birds: (1) birds of prey, which also feed upon dead bodies (eagles) and (2) vultures, which never take live prey, but only feed upon carcasses.

As indicated, aetos can refer to any number of large, meat eating birds, and whether the Biblical reference is to an eagle or a vulture depends on the context.

Additionally, and despite of Branham’s assertions to the contrary, eagles do eat carrion on occasion.

So how can we be sure William Branham wasn’t correct? Perhaps the numerous translators leaned too heavily on the apparent vulture/carcass context and missed Jesus’ subtle meaning. William Branham certainly seemed to think so:

Where the carcass is (the Manna is, the Word is), there the eagles will be gathered.

Fresh Kill or Dead Body?

Though the context of the passage and the ambiguity of the Greek word aetos should be sufficient to refute William Branham’s repeated misinterpretation of this verse, the death knoll comes when we look a little closer at Branham’s treatment of the word carcass.

He not only interprets carcass as meaning the “Word” as in, the Word for our day, but as Christ himself.

What is the carcass? The Word. He is the Word, the Carcass, Christ, Christ in you, the same yesterday, today, and forever.

William Branham’s intention here is so clear that Voice of God Recordings actually chooses to capitalize the word carcass!

πτῶμα (ptoma) means “fall,” “plunge,” “collapse,” Aesch. Suppl., 797, transf. “evil,” “defeat,” Aesch. Choeph., 13; Eur. Herc. Fur., 1228, then “what has fallen.” In relation to buildings “ruins,” Polyb., 16, 31, 8, in relation to living creatures “corpse” (from Aesch.), with gen., e.g., πτώματα νεκρῶν, Eur. Phoen., 1482, later (Polyb., etc.) without gen. (incorrect Suid., s.v. πτῶμα· σῶμα, ἄνευ τῆς κεφαλῆς). In the pap. only in the sense of “fall,” “collapse,” P. Oxy., I, 52, 12 (4th cent. A.D.), “windfall,” P. Fay., 102, 20 (2nd cent. A.D.; cf. Suid., s.v.), also a financial tt., P. Lond., I, 3, 37 (2nd cent. B.C.).1

In the LXX 23 times, 8 in Job (only 11 also in Heb., almost as many Heb. equivalents): Is. 30:13 f. of the collapse of a wall, 2 Macc. 9:7 of the overturning of a chariot, Jdt. 8:19 of death in battle, predominantly for “overthrow,” “disaster,” “destruction” (as a punishment), with πρόσκομμα in Is. 8:14 (also ΘΣ); Σιρ. 34:16 vl., with σύντριμμα Is. 51:19; 30:14, with συντριβή Prv. 16:18, with ἀπώλεια Σιρ. 31·6. The meaning “corpse” occurs only in Judges 14:8 (carcass of a lion), perhaps also ψ 109:6 (this use gains ground somewhat in ἈΘΣ).

The only meaning in the NT is “corpse,” the carcass of an animal in Mt. 24:28 (vl. σῶμα א; influence of Lk. 17:37), otherwise a human corpse: Mt. 14:12 (vl. σῶμα K) par. Mk. 6:29 of the body of John the Baptist, Rev. 11:8 f. of the bodies of the two witnesses (11:8, 9a collective sing., 9b plur.).

The Greek word translated as carcass, is ptoma which refers to either:

1. the fallen body of one dead or slain, a corpse, a carcass.
2. that which has fallen
3. (metaphorical) a downfall, defeat, calamity, error, or lapse into sin.

There is simply no way around the obvious here; the original Greek word carries an even more negative connotation than the English word can convey! In order to continue to accept William Branham’s interpretation of Matthew 24:28, one would have to come to grips with this disturbing picture: Wherever the ptoma is, there will the aetos be gathered together. To make it clearer still:

Wherever the (dead corpse, the lapse into sin & error, the downfall & calamity) are, there will the (vultures? or is it eagles?... eaglets, prophet, called out, elect, bride?) be gathered together.

One can see how moot the discussion of eagles vs. vultures is in light of the clear --and grim-- reality of what Jesus meant when he said carcass. Whichever bird it is, you don’t want to be one of them. This isn’t splitting hairs. This isn’t twisting a dead man’s words for the purposes of discrediting him, as some will accuse. This is a poignant example of reckless and irresponsible eisigesis of scripture, as Peter himself warned:

There are some things in them [Paul’s epistles] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

The Real Problem

The story here isn’t the obvious error, as no one understands the Bible perfectly, all of the time. The point is this: the man making the error claimed to be the prophet to this age, to have a divinely gifted ability to unpack the scriptures, and yet time and again, we see him reading his own bias into the Bible even when honesty to the text will not support that view, and worse, even changing the scripture in order to make it work. This is not a prophet of God opening the Word to the people.

It is a tragically deceived man, intent of bending God’s Word to make it support his delusions of grandeur, and in the process, causing thousands of ministers to stand in front of congregations --perhaps hundreds of thousands-- and relay this type of biblical exposition as the revealed Word for the hour.

Paul urges us to present ourselves to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. (2 Tim. 2:15) He goes on in v.16 to admonish us to “avoid irreverent babble”. Though many assume he was referring to gossip here, the context reveals that he was dealing with false doctrine. (2 Tim. 2:16-18)

Will we reverently treat the Word of God as the very words of God, filtering all men’s teaching through the totality of scripture, or will we drawn away by the doctrines of a man who is clearly identified many times in scripture, not as Elijah, but as a false prophet who made a career out of irreverent babble.